Conservative leaders among House Republicans say that President Bush’s upcoming showdown with them on immigration could threaten support for the Iraq war as well as for the president’s other top policy goals.

Got that? If Bush continues to work with moderates and democrats as duly elected representatives in our Congress these turncoats will stop supporting the military and their efforts in Iraq. How dare these people call those of us who simply support a bill they oppose traitors! They are the ones who are threatening the lives of our military men and women on the front line with punishment if they do not get their way on a totally independent matter.

Doesn't that tactic and the underlying dishonesty sound familiar? AJ's had enough, and is sticking to what he believes in.

I can never align myself with a party that would make such threats during a time of war. I cannot abide anyone who tolerates or allows anyone to threaten our democracy by holding a financial gun at the heads of our soldiers on the front lines. I will NEVER become part of a political effort which would threaten to let our enemies win a critical base of operations from which to launch attacks against us because some immigrants might become US citizens in 15 years time. This really puts the nail in the coffin of the GOP for me. Either they pass this bill as proof they will not abide blackmail of this kind, or they continue to rationalize why they are willing to lie down with disreputable thieves and blackmailers. Rationalization is covert support for these threats - nothing else.

There is no way for the GOP to pretend their cause is rightous and honorable now that we have had another threat to cripple our war effort if democracy proves to be against them on one issue. I really cannot in good conscience ever support a party that does this to our military and our national defense.

Good for him. I disagree with him on his underlying logic about the occupation of Iraq but I admire his honor in sticking to that logic.

I'm wondering, though - now that he's found out what slimy, double-talking, unprincipled scum his fellow-travellers really are, will that scale falling off be just the first of many? I'm wondering whether, for AJ, this is the first step in a journey that ends up at positions taken by the likes of John Cole, Greg Djerjian, Andrew Sullivan, Steven Taylor and others who had too many scales drop from their eyes in too short a period.

There have been a fair few conservative pundits who have made that journey in the last couple of years. But I'm hard pressed to think of even one prominent pundit or blogger who has travelled in the opposite direction.